The Views and thoughts of one educated, married, independent man's opinion. As a beacon against the long and hard fought battle to persevering constitutional government and exposing totalitarianism. Fighting to the bitter end the rights for the moral, faithful, truth, justice and the American way. As long as there's a beacon of freedom, you can get into the wright mind.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

David Brooks and the value of an American Education.

David Brooks has made what I first perceived as an asinine statement, but realized, that his statements are quite accurate and for good reason: most Americans live in reality and aren't as stupid as he think we are. Here's the article as stated:

Faux conservative New York Times scribbler David Brooks sees the decade dominated by The Tea Party movement. Brooks in true snobby fashion describes the movement as a rebellion against “the educated class”:The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

Being a member myself, as 28% of Americans, of the "Educated Class" which I'll define as someone with at least a 4 year college degree, allow me to go over what I find is fallacious with his line of reasoning.

First, he equates being educated with being knowledgeable. This is a gross fallacy. That's the same as equating intelligence with wisdom and since I have an IQ of 140 to 150, depending on which test I'm given, and my life is filled with a series of mindless mistakes and fallacies that anyone with common sense would had been able to avoid, I'm a living counter argument that high intelligence leads to high wisdom. The same is true with education being equal with knowledge. First of all, what does it mean to gain knowledge? Being an "educated" man, I looked it up in a dictionary (that's a book that define words for those with public high school education). There are 11 different definitions so I will take the prospective of what David Brooks means the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.

When I was taking a philosophy class (ethics of all things), there was a debate that education was the cure of all of humanities ills. My counter didn't sit too well with most in the class when I stated that Nazi Germany was the most educated society on the planet at the time and look at how those people turned out (more on this later). I couldn't repeat the names I got called. In the end my argument was rejected because Nazi Germany's people were so evil (well, not all of them) they had to be ignorant and showed how "educated" they were which was they weren't. The truth is that those loyal to the Nazis were given free education thorough out college (except Slovs and Jews of course). They missed the main point I was presenting. Education is only as good as the facts and how they are presented. Germans were taught that Jews were spawns of Satan, the cause of Germany as well as all of humanities ills, Slovs were subhuman as well as people of color, handicapped, homosexual, and Gypies. The facts are this just wasn't true, but it was taught as a truth so their "education" was based on a lie and that lie led to their destruction.

Take what's taught in our universities today. When I went in the 90's, it was a difficult place, especially as a conservative, to excel unless you spew the liberal mantra. I remember the Ethic Studies class we were required to take. It should had been called the "class and racial warfare" studies. Many of the minority students hated that class because it made them look like weak, whinny lunatics at the same time making white people all look evil. I got a B+ in the class and all I did was spew white hatred. To this date I didn't know what we were suppose to get out of the class other than to hate white people. The truth is that unless the student is majoring in some hard science, their education is nothing more than socialistic indoctrination. In bio-ethics, one of the worse classes I've ever took and not because of the leftist insanity, but the realities of life in the medical profession and the choices or options that they have to make. It was just plain a depressing class. I got a B in that class. I missed an A because I failed one of the segments: Abortion. The "fact" that I didn't believe in the fact that's it's a, and I kid you know this is how it was presented to me, God given right to women, I got an F on that segment (I aced the others). I didn't tote the leftist line and payed for my "lack of education on women's rights". I was one of only 3 that took the con side and all three of us were given failing grades. I learned not to make my views known on Abortion. At the time, the "greens" were guilting those of that drive for the "global cooling" we were causing, later changed to Global Warming. In my biology class, marriage even got into the curriculum. It was viewed as a man made institution to oppress women and went against nature as it's just natural to "mate" with anyone that's willing. Those are just what I had to endure and I was a math major. I'm thankful I didn't have my major in these social sciences because I never would had passed.

The point I have, just as the Nazis based their education on a lie, the left who control 80% plus of our schools and universities while determining the curriculum and what textbooks and reading material, basically how we are to be "educated" have been teaching us. Well, let's take global warming. We now know that it was based on falsified data to make it look the way the researchers wanted it to and it was based on ONE set of data. Nobody was allowed or even threatened with grant cut offs to even attempt to repeat and confirmed the data and conclusion. This is terrible science as science needs to be repeatable and by independent sources. The conclusion that the crisis is too severe to wait for the research to be completed. Now we learn it's a lie and the academia and media can't take it back making them look foolish. This is the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time?

One definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result every time. When it comes to socialism, our education system is guilty of insanity. What we get for our education is that capitalism is evil in its form and socialism is the pathway to equality and utopia. Well, capitalism does have its share of vices and we're living through one right now with the recession, but let's take a look at the FACTS about socialism. A fact is has several definition, I'm going to use 2 of them here:1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.You see, facts are absolutes. They have no grey areas, either something is real or it isn't. The facts are that socialism has been tried many times in many countries all around the world, Nazi German, Europe, Russia, the former Soviet States, and they have all failed miserably. China is being branded as socialism that works, but China has a free capitalistic markets. As long as the communists get to rule, they leave the markets alone and thus is the main reason why as an economic powerhouse, they are creaming us, but that's for another blog. Everywhere where socialism has been tried, its lead to financial collapse, scarcity, poverty, misery, and death. Socialism, by World War 2 of Hilter's Germany and Stalin's Russia saw atrocities that blow the mind. Stalin killed 20 million of his own people and that doesn't count the war dead. Hilter killed 15 million in his camps. China's Cultural Revolution (before their markets were opened up) killed up to 60 million, Pol Pot's killing fields 2 million, and who knows within the Soviet Bloc. The facts are socialism in the 20th century was responsible for at least 100 million dead that we know of. Yet we still want to try it here thinking it will work this time because the right people are in charge.

What's worse of all, facts have no basis in American education any more and that's why the Educated Class doesn't get it anymore. You see, absolutes don't exist anymore in our education system. Everything are shade of grey now. As I stated, facts are absolutes, actual, reality. Their existence isn't in dispute, they are indisputable. Take a look around our educated groups, especially those in Washington, and tell me these people have ideas and "facts" that have basis in reality. This is how we can policies that state we need to spend our way out of debt, to defeat terrorism, we deny its existence or call it something else, how we got the global warming fiasco, or gay marriages. Basically a lost of moral imperatives or even common sense because even common sense can be questioned as having any validity. So you can try the same thing over and over again and expect different results because you can define reality as being anything you want. It doesn't take long why stupid, insane, or irrational ideas get spewed out and the "educated" get shocks when it doesn't work. This is why the educated class doesn't get why the general populace is starting to rebel. They live in reality, they know there are absolute truths like if I put my finger in the electrical outlet, I will get shocked or if someone points a loaded gun to my head and pull the trigger, I will die. They know they can't spend their way out of debt, given the record low temperatures we're experiencing this year, global warming is nonsense, and no matter how you try, homosexuals can't have children naturally.

The “educated class” of both sides of the aisle have been running Washington for decades and just look at what the result has been: astronomical deficits, reckless spending, ineffective security measures (if you don't feel secure, change your definition), and an energy policy that leaves us at the mercy of our radical Islamic enemies. How is the common man or anyone who lives in reality with a logical mind supposed to have any faith in a track record like that? This is what is suppose to pass as the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.Well, the facts don't support his premise that the educated knows what's best for us.

People are starting to realize that what is sorely missing in government by the "educated class" is a healthy dose of common sense. Whether it is dealing with the economy, health care or terrorism, energy, economy, and yes, education, common senses is absent. Heck even the truth is often under attack. This is what the people are waking up to and starting to reject. Given how the "educated" think, perhaps I should start to enbrace that old adage of "Ignorance is bliss".